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Robin: Marco gives us confidence!

June 16th, 2008 | By: Jan | 17 Comments »

Mr and Mrs Van Persie

Part of a dream… That’s what Van Persie said when asked what he experienced in the Italy and France matches… A part? “Yeah, because the rest of the dream still needs to be realized!”

“I am still digesting it all. I never expected this, to be honest, but now we have to finish it. A minimum of four great matches, otherwise we’ll end up with nothing, like 15 other nations.”

He came on the pitch twice and scored one goal. “That is fun for me. I am happy. I wasn’t fit when we started and in particular mentally that’s a tough start. I had used up to much energy-reserves and all, but now I’m good. I’m back.”

After his goal against France, he ran into the arms of his physio. “I told him that. I worked with him for quite a while, spend hours with him per day. I told him: when I score, I’ll look you up.”

The moment of his appearance against France was a bit of a surprise for him. “Honestly, we were under pressure. He had brought Robben already and I guessed he would bring Heitinga or Bouma. But he just oozes confidence, he has so much bravado and that wears off. I can’t see any other team manager do what he does.”

What does he tell you when you go into the field. “Nothing much, no secret tasks or codes. He gives you a hand, winks at you and says: go for it! Van Basten is so relaxed. Everyone says he has changed, but I don’t see that. Really, he was always like this.”

After the win, everyone went of his rocker for a while. “Ah man, those images of players with their kkids on the pitch. The whole world saw that. How cool is that? My mum was there, my father in law will be here too. And Gio’s whole family is always here, well…that’s quite a big group, I tell you.”

“Those pictures are so fun. Sar with his little girl and Wes… Sneijder asked me where my son was, I said, dude..it’s eleven o’clock, he is in bed!”

Dutch prime minister JP Balkenende was there too. “When we win the finals, JP Balkenende is going for a swim, for sure! The vibe is so good, we won’t choke when we start to play. We love playing here. We all think: when can we take on Romania…”

“I don’t see too much stress. I know some goalies, who start fidgeting days before a match. That is not good, that extreme stress… I don’t think we have that. We have pressure, sure, but we don’t seem to notice that the whole world is watching us when we play. All that stuff that goes on in Holland, we don’t notice that really.”

“But we do feel we play our games in Rotterdam. We come into the stadium and the whole place erupts! Every where you look you see orange. Well, that works very well for us. That feeling of “we’re going to do this as a team” you know? I don’t think any other team here has that.”

“And what about that Jon Bon Jovi concert in Amsterdam. They started two hours later because the public there first wanted to see us play France. Man, that’s just great.”

Van Persie doesn’t want to discuss alternative scenarios for the Romania match. “We’re all sportsmen, first. No one in our group wants to favor one or another nation. And why would we? If Romania goes through, we might end up playing against them in the semis and we will need to wait and see whether Romania is an easier opponent than France or Italy. I hate to lose a game of pingpong let alone losing against Romania.”

He does expect a tough match against Romania. “They need to win and will give it their all. Their resistance will be 100%. But, there is no reason for us to bend over.”

“I’m happy we’ll miss Spain in the quarters. I rate them the highest of all teams that are left over. But Russia and Sweden are also tough. None of the opponents are easy. But it doesn’t matter too much. We need to play our strength and give it our best. Sweden had good moments and are hard to play, while Russia was actually pretty impressive. They missed the essential luck at times but they are specialists in using the space they get.”

Tags: Bouma, De Zeeuw, Engelaar, Euro 2008, Hiddink, Holland, Netherlands, Ooijer, Oranje, Persie, Sar

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Comments

By Thomas Kraus | June 16th, 2008 at 4:07 am

I am sure he would love to bend over!

Posted from Australia

By Jan | June 16th, 2008 at 4:14 am

Excuse me????

By bobotoh | June 16th, 2008 at 4:37 am

In the match against Romania, Holland should start Robben, RvP, and Afellay. Engelaar should start also. Put Huntelaar as the lone striker. I am not sure about who should play alongside Engelaar, but I think De Jong should play. Give Sneijder, vdv, and Kuyt a rest. At the back, Bouma and Heitinga should play as central defender, while Tim De cler and Boula are the left back and right back respectively.

Posted from Indonesia

By Carlos | June 16th, 2008 at 8:18 am

Jan – In Holland v Persie was voted the most attractive guy by the gays !

Bobotoh – de Jong is on a Yellow card, his and Ooiers were the first names OFF the list. Think Melchiot will come in for Boulah.
But the midfield is awesome !! Huntelaar up front – wouldn’t it be great if he grabbed a hat trick ! Bagus !

Posted from Singapore

By Samuel Knight (Oudegeest) | June 16th, 2008 at 11:11 am

I want to see the reserves!!

First place is clinched. Give all the guys who haven’t had their chance to play time on the pitch.

No reason to risk injury. of Hesselink, Huntelaar, give them a chance.

Posted from United States

By goose | June 16th, 2008 at 12:17 pm

Thomas Kraut; what??? f off

————-Stekelburg—————-

–Bouma—-Mathijsen—Boula—-deCler–

————-Heitinga————–

—Engelaar—-deZeeuw—–Robben—

————–vPersie————–

————-Huntelaar————

Posted from Netherlands

By Jess | June 16th, 2008 at 12:29 pm

I also wanna be Mrs. Van Persie

By evaldo | June 16th, 2008 at 1:06 pm

dunno if you guys saw this: http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=547601&root=euro2008&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab1pos1&cc=5901

i want mrs. van persie

Posted from United States

By finnster01 | June 16th, 2008 at 1:17 pm

Fair enough all, but I want to be Mr Oranje Angel. Even though she is from Lithuania, I bet she knows how to ride a bicycle (unless the Germans stole that one too).

Mrs Van Persie comes across as a scooter/moped girl, and that is not my type

Posted from United States

By Yiannis | June 16th, 2008 at 1:30 pm

Hey guys, i ve just returned from Switzerland.
I have to tell you that the atmosphere in Bern was awesome! i ve never experienced anything like that. And the fans in the stadium were great. Singing, shouting and generally pushing the team forward in their own UNIQUE way. i have to say that even though i didn’t understand any of the songs (besides the one about Toni), still it was a great feeling!
now im just trying to find the highlights of the two games (or even the whole
games). i can’t find them on youtube and i can’t speak dutch in order to search through the dutch sides.
any help?
i know i missed every post here. so can anyone tell me about rudd’s goal against italy? offside or not? does the guy outside the field really count?

Posted from United Kingdom

By Jan | June 16th, 2008 at 1:38 pm

Yiannis, you won’t come off this easy mate! You’ve been in Bern? And you only write this little piece on it? Hahahaaa…we want complete reviews, with all details. For starters: YouTube should have the goals by now. Secondly, Ruud was officially not off side. FIFA and UEFA stated this formally. The only one who thinks it’s off side – apart from the Italians – is Jogi Low.

More news on Bern, please: why were you there? Did you see live matches? Which ones? How? With whom? What did you do after the game? Etc etc.

if you’ve missed the posts, track back to the essential ones: the ones about the Oranje Angel!!

By goose | June 16th, 2008 at 1:41 pm

@yiannis; almost nothing to be found on YT, they delete everything..the f basterds of Uefa are afraid they wont make enough money for themselfs

Uefa= fascisme

Ruuds goal wanst offside, the guy outside did count

here some vids;

dutch fans at Der Bundesplatz
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAXe0wIdHHQ

Hol-Italy goals:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErZRKYfCF7s&feature=related

more dutch fans in Bern:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaJFGBVMsGk

Holland – France (Arab commentary, i hear Allah is on our side! haha)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6Zg6g7aeQ4

grtz

Posted from Netherlands

By Miguel Rosado | June 16th, 2008 at 4:09 pm

Italy and France are really hard to beat when they are through the group stage, therefore I think Holland should let themselves lose against Romania so we don’t have to face Italy or France again. I have confidence in our team and I know we can beat them again but if we can avoid facing them we should take advantage of our points and leave them out. In this tournaments you need to be smart and use everything in your favour.

———–Stekelenbur——–

–Melchiot–Bouma—Heitinga–De Cler—

——De Zeeuw—Engelaar——-

–Afellay—Persie—Robben–

————Huntelaar————-

By Jan | June 16th, 2008 at 4:31 pm

My 2cents: I think Holland will lose but not deliberately.

The fact that we’re qualified already will definitely impact the focus of the players. If you lose 4% concentration, you set yourself up for defeat against this Romania. It’s a really lethal and tough team. I rate them higher than France and Italy. But, I also think Spain will kill any of the three so I am not worried about meeting any of them in the semis. If Holland wins against Russia/Sweden we need to defeat the Spanish!

By dave | June 16th, 2008 at 6:32 pm

Spain can be had defensively. Not by Romania, but Italy and France created good chances against us and will surely create as many against the Spanish defense. If they start finishing…

Posted from United States

By Jan | June 16th, 2008 at 6:41 pm

I honestly think Italy and France won’t recover from their wounds. The Italy squad is divided and the French seemed to have lost it too. They have an epic battle tomorrow (looking forward to it) and I do expect to see some red and yellow… I think who ever goes through is wasted.

Winning this title is not about playing football the best, or tactics.. It’s about unity and mental strength. Don’t know if the Spain have that, by the way… Germans do. Swedes too I think. It’ll be interesting…

By stephen | June 16th, 2008 at 10:44 pm

Not so sure Holland will lose. Even if they play their so called “B” squad, it is still a pretty darn good team, if not lethal up front. These players who have not played yet(Hunter, DeZee, Heit, DeCler, Bouma, Melciot) will want to impress, and the players who are itching to play more (RvP, Robben) will want to continue to show brilliance. Tho seeing France and Italy bow out of the tourney would be epic, I don’t think Romania will beat Holland, draw maybe. But that will be ok, especially with France-Italy drawing a pathetic nil-nil tommorrow.

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